This time of year it is especially easy on many days to look up–bright skies and new flowers make it easy!

The daffodils keep blooming and so far we have not had . . . → Read More: Keep Looking Up]]> That’s what I keep telling myself:  keep looking up. It’s a good thing to remember to look up. As my friend Marqueta says, onward and upward!

This time of year it is especially easy on many days to look up–bright skies and new flowers make it easy!

The daffodils keep blooming and so far we have not had a frost to come in and kill anything back.  We have had some cold nights and some frozen birdbath water a couple of mornings, but I am truly loving the springlike  weather and waking up to bright light behind the curtains!

The hellebores are so pretty! 

While we are looking up, I want to share something that my friend Carrie told me about.  It’s a raffle giveaway for a Nikon camera in order to help raise money to bring a little boy, Noah, home to his forever parents.

http://www.silvamoose.com/MoosePages/MomsPage/tabid/59/EntryId/188/Nikon-D3100-Camera-GIVEAWAY.aspx

There’s the link.  Carrie has mentioned this family before–she’s doing so much to try and help this family.  I am going to buy a chance to win!  There’s a chip-in widget on the sidebar of the blog linked above.  Consider helping!

Hyacinths!  Be still my heart!

The above picture is not super clear, but it was taken through glass at quite a distance and I’m thrilled that it turned out as clear as it did.  Yes, bluejays have quite the reputation as far as being aggressive and running other songbirds off, but I do think they are beautiful birds.  I must admit, it made me happy to look out and see this bluejay at the birdbath. 

I could just sit here all day, visiting blog friends and writing about all things fun and frivolous, but Michaela is having a math-intensive school day and I am working today.  Truly I know what I need to be doing.  Enjoy this day!

Are you up for a walk today?  It’s very cold.  Brrrrr.  But I think it would clear our minds to put Annie on her leash and go out and see what lives and chirps and breathes, outside, on a cold day like today.

Our walking will be brisk, but not so much so that we can’t . . . → Read More: A Cold and Windy Walk]]> Dear Friends,

Are you up for a walk today?  It’s very cold.  Brrrrr.  But I think it would clear our minds to put Annie on her leash and go out and see what lives and chirps and breathes, outside, on a cold day like today.

Our walking will be brisk, but not so much so that we can’t talk some.

Annie looks lazy.  Yes, indeed.  But if we say the word, “outside,” she’ll be up in a flash and wagging her tail.  (Yes, that’s a picture of her sitting behind me while I work.  Thanks be to Michaela.)

We really do need to fill up the bird feeders while we are outside.  After all, look who visits me all day at my office window.  Oh, and the water in the birdbaths is frozen too.  They must have something to drink!

A little house finch.

A pair of finches!

How do they come swooping down and land just right on that thorny rose?!

A cute little black capped chickadee!

So let’s go!

I’ll leave you with a little thought. I’ll be typing today. There’s food in the crockpots for supper! We’re supposed to get ice and snow today! I am working on an amazing doll house, totally built from scraps. I can’t wait to show you! I’m listing pins in my Etsy shop. I am finally, finally tying up a package for a dear, dear friend.

If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.”  ~Kate Douglas Wiggin  (1856-1953)

Here’s to creating a happy, innocent, joyous childhood for our true blessings.

Michaela and I . . . → Read More: Colors of Fall]]> It’s a bit sad that this time of year doesn’t last longer. I love the falling leaves. I love the colors. I love the feel of the air, and the temperatures that are just cool enough to call for long sleeves and yet warm enough for a picnic or swinging in the tree swing.

Michaela and I are trying to walk Annie together.  Many times I walk Annie by myself in the mornings, but lately I’ve felt it would be good for us to walk as a family.  Even Joseph went with us on this walk.

The dying hostas make a bright yellow display along the border of one of my flower beds.  Yeah, it needs weeding, but I try to enjoy it anyway.

I stepped outside and was greeted by brightly colored brick steps.  The neighbor children love to come over and help Michaela decorate the steps and sidewalk.

(Mama, if you are reading, I know you are not crazy about the pokeweed plants, or at least you weren’t last year, but maybe I’ll have you convinced before too long.)  If you look closely at these pictures, you’ll see our little “pet” mocking bird.  He doesn’t fly away when you walk under the arbor.  Michaela tells me that he sits very quietly and watches her go by when she comes in from playing.

The mocking bird is one of the reasons that I let the pokeweed grow up over the arbor like I did.  The birds love that thicket feel that it creates.

The mocking bird seems to have claimed it as home.  That makes me happy.  I guess it’s my wild side, but I think the pokeweed is pretty whether a mockingbird likes it or not!

Lately the butterflies have been making one last attempt to visit all the flowers before it gets cold.  The Clara Curtis mums are just about completely gone, but there’s still enough color and allure to draw in the insects by the dozons.

If you don’t have Clara Curtis mums, I highly recommend them.  They spread, but not so badly that you’ll hate them, and they are beautiful come fall.

Pokeberries:  poison and medicine, all at the same time, though I still have not reached the point where I’ll use them.  Maybe some day.

I love the way the pokeweed stalk has curled into the arbor.  It is so large!  

More rosehips gathered for winter tea.

If you have any fall color still hanging around, enjoy it!  It’ll be gone with the next few big winds.

I sprayed the plants . . . → Read More: In Search of Creatures]]> It is sweltering hot here.  The last few days it has been around 100 degrees, and that is with the North Carolina humidity, mind you.  There are days when we get announcements on the radio that it’s best to stay in because it’s dangerous for the young and the elderly to be outside. 

I sprayed the plants off this morning with a cool stream from the hose and watered everything I have for sale.  Doesn’t take long for pots to turn completely bone dry with the soil sucked in from the edges of the pot, all leaves pitifully wilted. 

I then went, in search of creatures, through the garden.  I think even most of the creatures are hiding in their leafy green houses because it’s just to hot to be out in the sun.  Except the mosquitoes, that is.  They are pesky and annoying and I wonder just what good they do.  They are creatures, after all, and I suppose they qualify as food for something out there, which gives them some credit, but I am hard pressed to find anything else endearing about the things.  They follow me in clouds around my legs.  Just a part of the North Carolina summer.

This is a tiny specimen of a jumping spider.  I almost didn’t see him.  We have some really huge jumping spiders in the garden, and I very much want to get you a picture of one this year.  They are even bigger than those I have seen in years past.

My little wild garden needs a bit of trimming.  I let it burst out of its boundaries until, well, about this time of year, then it requires some love so that people can walk through.  People other than me.  People who are not so excited about rubbing shoulders with creatures.  The poor mailman continues to cut his way through the Lady Banks that sweeps down into his hair and the pokeweed that’s now 8 feet tall and hanging in his way, and the mass of arugula, mint and rosemary that reaches for his legs when he comes up my sidewalk.  He homeschools, and he knows we do, so he presses on.

The sunflowers are starting to bloom, some tall, some short, and some taken down to the ground by aggressive cucumber and squash vines.  All is fair in love and war.  And gardening.

The bronze fennel has a gorgeous, dainty, lacy bloom.  This plant, if you’ve never grown it, is quite interesting.  It has an odd taste that I like but can’t take too much of, if you know what I mean.  It’s sort of a licorice taste to me.  Sort of.  Fennel is very good for you, however.  I put it in salads.

Now, this creature was smack dab in the middle of the vegetable garden, probably having just chewed a hole in something that I wanted to keep.  I did not kill him — may regret that later, but I carried him off to another place.  I don’t have time to ID him this morning and I’m not sure what he is.  Any ideas?  Any thoughts about what vegetable he’s out to destroy?

Not sure you can see the hummingbird.  This picture was taken yesterday from my work desk, through the office window actually.  This sweet little hummingbird hangs out around the bee balm and loves sitting on the little archway I’ve put out there for the cardinal vine to climb on.  When the hummingbird is not there, a couple of cardinals rest there. 

Not any clearer really, but a little closer up.

I do have to work today.  Sigh and double sigh.  It’s not easy but I try so hard not to complain.  There are so many things I’d love to do for an income — things that I’ve tried in the past and had success with, but for now we need the insurance that my job provides.  So I try to enjoy my work.  Some of it is actually quite interesting.  I’ve already done notes this year about snake bites!  Yes.  A bite from a snake, up close and personal, and requiring emergency care, antivenin and a hospital stay.  I am fascinated with snakes, I must say, but I don’t care anything about being bitten by one. 

So I’ll look for the good in things and keep doing what I have to do right now.  If I’ve learned anything at all in my 47 years, it’s that life certainly does pass by in seasons, and this season too shall pass.

I realize the little bluebird is blurry, but she really likes to be hidden anyway, in a mass of green and camouflaged . . . → Read More: You Know Dasher and Dancer…]]> But have you met the little birds that surround me while I type?  Oh maybe you glanced at them when we undertook the office redo, but I thought you might like to see them again.

I realize the little bluebird is blurry, but she really likes to be hidden anyway, in a mass of green and camouflaged by a butterfly finger-painting project a neighborhood girl gave to me.

A trio of gifted birds have alighted high up in the office, two on painted-white brick columns and one on a framed Marjolein Bastin artwork.

My children all love this hand-carved bird with what appears to be Japanese writing carved into the base.  He was rescued from Goodwill and set to watch over the nearby birdhouse.

A ceramic pomander bird-occupied cage filled with lavender from the garden.

Another pomander ~ a white ceramic dove.

Love is…a heavy cast iron bird.

One of my favorites is the large bluejay, because the carpenter bought it for me on our last vacation to Tweetsie Railroad.

And very humbly last, but certainly not least, is this little formed-from-clay sweetheart of a bird, sitting in a string-and-glue nest, fashioned by Daniel’s little hands when he was only 6 years old.  He has a chipped beak, but to say he’s not my favorite would be a travesty.

Things like collected birds are just tokens of days spent with friends and sweethearts, and of times gone by.  It’s the memories these tokens elicit that are the real treasures. 

We all only have today.  Enjoy…

I didn’t think so.

Enjoy your day.  It’s bright and pretty here!  Sunny! It’s a field trip day.  The garden is about to burst at the seams with little spring flowers.  Hmmmm.  . . . → Read More: Would You Dare?]]> Now tell the truth.  If you were a pretty little North Carolina songbird, with delicate wings and a bright song, would you dare to land in this feeder?

I didn’t think so.

Enjoy your day.  It’s bright and pretty here!  Sunny! It’s a field trip day.  The garden is about to burst at the seams with little spring flowers.  Hmmmm.  Tea in the garden this morning.  I’ve taken some pictures already this morning.  I’m making an infusion to sip on all day.  I am prayerful that we’ll have a good and safe and productive day.  I hope you have the same.

Lynn

When we woke up this . . . → Read More: The Injured House Finch]]> Yes, the injured bird — the one tormented by the cat, was a house finch.  My first deep instinct was purple finch, but the bird looked so tiny and yet puffed up, and so brown, I thought wren?  And then settled on sparrow.  But it was in fact a female house finch.

When we woke up this morning the bird was looking much, much better.  It was moving both legs, something it had been unable to do right after the attack, and it seemed hungry.

If I look worried, it’s because I am.  I know you should not try to keep a wild bird in captivity, and I was very worried that the little bird might not make it after all.  I called Piedmont Wildlife Center and they instructed me that I could bring the little bird in for them to help, with antibiotics and rehabilitative care.  Yaaaaay!! 

Here is the little bird in a cage ready to ride with me over to Piedmont Wildlife Center.  She made it safely there, where I was told that our little rescued bird was a house finch and where I was given a case number to follow up on what happens to her.   I’ll let you know.

Lynn

Greensboro Birds

It has beautiful pictures and a lot . . . → Read More: Greensboro Birds]]> Just wanted to share a lovely blog I stumbled across today:

Greensboro Birds

It has beautiful pictures and a lot of info.

Lynn